Description: This article discusses Asset-Backed Securities as a low volatility alternative to Intermediate Government Bonds.

Description: This article discusses the use of financial economics in managing pension plans and warns of issues with rapid change in this area.

Description: This article examines trends of the stock market beginning with Dow theory - market prices tend to trend either upwards, a bull trend, or downwards, a bear trend. It discusses the many trading rules based on diverse patterns in the price series since the time of Dow including strictly filter rules.

Description: This article discusses facts and issues related to the selection of a stock’s price distribution.

Description: This paper incorporates a jump-diffusion process into the original Lee-Carter model, and uses it to forecast mortality rates and analyze mortality securitization.

Description: In Canada, there are three main sources of government-provided retirement income: 1. The Canada/Quebec Pension Plan [C/QPP], which have benefits and contributions based on earnings up to the Yearly Maximum Pensionable Earnings, 2. Old Age Security [OAS], which is a fixed amount for most but does include a 'clawback' of benefits for high-income individuals, and 3. The Guaranteed Income Supplement [GIS], which is designed to supplement those with extremely low income. The annual GIS benefit is reduced, or clawed back, by 50 cents for every dollar of annual income the person has in retirement, including C/QPP and income from Registered Retirement Savings Plans [RRSP] and other savings. OAS benefits are not included in determining the GIS clawback. The result of this is that low-income individuals who attempt to enhance their retirement replacement ratio actually see a decrease in government-provided support the more they save for retirement. In fact, savings in an RRSP can effectively be taxed at more than 100% through corresponding reductions in the GIS, social housing, home care, GAINS [Ontario's Guaranteed Annual Income Supplement], and other benefits which are based on one's personal retirement income. This paper explores a basic GIS exemption, a GIS clawback rate of lower than 50%, and various combinations of the two as alternative policies for the GIS. The goal is to improve the fairness of the GIS and reduce the disincentive to save for retirement, without increasing the overall cost of the program significantly.

Description: In many countries, insurers and banks are separately regulated. In some countries, banks and insurers are not allowed to be part of the same conglomerate and share capital. This raises questions about the efficient use of capital and return on equity to shareholders. This is the abstract of an empirical study that views economic capital from a solvency perspective with the focus on downside risk. The key question addressed is 'What efficiencies, if any, are gained by allowing banks and insurers of different types to merge and thus share capital.' We examine to what degree bank and insurer performances have been correlated historically, especially in the downside tail. This case study is based on Canadian banks, life insurers and property-casualty insurers.

Description: This presentation from the 44th Actuarial Research Conference held in 2009 in Madison, Wisconsin a consulting view of the role of research in industry. Its themes are emerging trends and applications, theory and practice, and model risk. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 2010, Vol. 1.

Description: Most discussions of actuarial education focus on 'what actuaries need to know'– the knowledge content. This is akin to discussing say mortality by considering just one relevant factor [perhaps age]. Reflecting on more than a quarter of a century teaching thousands of actuarial students in eight countries across many cultures suggests that a curriculum is much more than a list of syllabus topics and that a realistic model of student learning needs to acknowledge many more factors than just the knowledge content and the 'ability' of the student. This paper summarises what the author has learned about learning. From that basis it identifies some challenges for actuarial educators, especially in the areas of the development of students’ skills, the assessment of students’ learning and the 'shape' of actuarial education. The relationship between universities and actuarial bodies is also discussed.

Description: This is the abstract of the presentation that shows results obtained from a mortality study based on Canadian pensioners data available from records of the Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan as of December 31st, 2008. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2011.